


The Fever

by KoroMarimo



Category: Hellsing, Hellsing Ultimate
Genre: Blood, Father-Daughter Relationship, Hellsing Ultimate OVA, Historical References, Illnesses, Inspired By Hellsing, Other, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-10-14 22:08:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10545142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KoroMarimo/pseuds/KoroMarimo
Summary: Your brother was dead. Your mother was insane. Your father had left for a war that would leave the country in ruins in order to take on a mission requested of him by a madman.And you? You were sicker than hell, wanting it all to come to an end steeped in blood and laughter.





	1. Father

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jubalii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jubalii/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Hill](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2312879) by [Jubalii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jubalii/pseuds/Jubalii). 



> This twoshot is finally done and I'm proud. It was inspired by Jubalii's fic, "The Hill", which I highly recommend. I wanted to do something in the perspective of the daughter, and I will admit I did take some liberties in determining her illness as rheumatic fever which was fairly common during the war. The symptoms for children are weird, and for some reason inappropriate laughter was one of them.

You wanted your father.  
  
Every night laying in your bed was torture. Most often it was your wrists and ankles that would cause you to remain awake with pain that jolted through your body like an electric shock. The pain would transfer from one joint to another, almost as though there were people placed in strategic places assigned to cause you pain by twisting your joints and making it hurt almost in rhythm. It was as though this was some sort of sick game and your body was the toy required to play it.  
  
You wanted your father.  
  
There was a queer sort of fluttering in your chest that would escalate to full scale pounding at a moment's notice, so loud that it frightened you and caused the loud pounding of your heart to speed up and beat against your chest like a man buried alive and beating on the wood of his own coffin. It was erratic, frantic even, as though your heart was trying to escape. You couldn't breathe either. You often felt as though you were suffocating under a blanket of heat and would flail out and kick your real sheets off your body, exposing you to the blessed winter chill and causing your mother to cry and beg for you to stay still, but DAMMIT couldn't she understand that you just wanted a lungful of air and not anymore heat because the fever was already keeping you warm enough and kicking your legs was the only thing keeping you from going mad? Or was that wrong tense? Were you already mad?  
  
God help you, you wanted your father.  
  
You would lie there on your back gulping and gasping for air like a dying fish while your mother screamed and cried out like a wounded animal, powerless to help you escape from death's viral clutches. There was nothing she could do, and there was absolutely nothing the old quack doctor in town could do about it either except shake his head in pity and prescribe pain medication that did nothing to relieve any symptoms. He didn't really know what he was doing anyways, at one point he even suggested morphine and it was then you knew he had no idea what your symptoms were pointing to. He wasn't like your father who was always so calm and rational about being sick. Right now your father would certainly know exactly what was wrong with you with a mere glance, because he was that good. And he would be giving stern instructions to your mother and make her shut up that blasted wailing, and everything would be alright within a few days, because your father was a damn good doctor and he made the impossible possible. If he were here to take care of you, you would be able to see Gertrude and Liesl and all those other wretched girls from the BDM because God knew you would give anything to see them and gossip and not have to endure this wretched sickness. You would be able to apologize to Frau Bachmeier for laughing out loud at that important film about the front lines. You would be able to tell her it was that damn fever's fault, because Jonas had once said something very funny about soldiers and the fever had made you think of it and it started everything from the laughing to the great scare you gave all the girls (and some of the boys too. So long as you lived you would never forget the look on good looking Klaus' face as you went down, blood streaming down your nose while you stayed laughing the whole time.). If your father were here, this whole mess would have been averted in the first place.  
  
You whimpered through the heart palpitations, gaining a minimal amount of strength to open your mouth and say that you wanted your father. Alas, that was an impossible request. Your father was in Poland and he wouldn't be coming back for a long time.  
  
This madness had all began the day he left. You remembered it was his day of departure because you both had walked hand in hand together down the snow filled streets for a while discussing serious things. Flakes of white snow had clung to your eyelashes and your father's glasses, but it had done nothing to distract him from the long voyage he would have to undergo, like leaving you to take care of your mother who was already heartbroken and driving herself crazy because of the important things he had to do for Hitler's chosen. He hadn't been able to divulge many details of what he would be doing, and this convinced your mother that he had ulterior motives and was really just preparing to abandon the family altogether. You said nothing because you had a small cough, your father had just gotten through treating you for a minor sore throat, and your conversation had been peppered with fits of soft coughing whenever you opened your mouth.  
  
"Just keep her calm." He had told you, pausing for you to cough and holding your hand rather tightly as you did so, "She's still very much in shock from losing your brother. Maybe you could spend a little more time with her, let her teach you some domestic things, make her feel like she is important."  
  
"I will father." You had replied almost mechanically. You didn't want him to leave, he was the only rational one left in the house since the unexpected death of your tall, stoic brother Jonas who had always been mother's pride and joy. He became her shining light of pride even more so after he had been drafted into the army and stood proud in his handsome new uniform, your endeavors to please her had taken a back burner even though you were doing your part in the Bund Deutscher Mädel with all the other girls from school. Your mother's indifference to any activity you participated in frustrated you and made you naturally gravitate towards your father and his cool, benign presence that eventually parted and revealed his alarmingly deep fatherly love towards you. He alone encouraged you and praised you for striving to meet the Fatherland's expectations, and it was under his praise that you flourished and remained contented while Jonas garnered all of mother's attention. Truth be told you preferred it that way. You had more fun chatting with your father and going over his vast collections of medical journals than you ever had spending time with your mother.  
  
Now Jonas was gone. You were the only child left, and brother's passing had left an extremely heavy burden which draped over your shoulders and seemed to strangle you every time you thought of it. Mother tried to reach out towards you and had been almost offended when she realized that you preferred your father's world of sickness and grotesque hypotheses of new medicines to her delusions of Jonas' passing. The guilt of preferring one parent over the other was painful, but you couldn't help feeling resentment that it was your mother's own fault for making things this way.  
  
"I'll try to." You said, and coughed a little, "But I still wish you could stay. She listens to you better than me, prefers you to me better as well. I've told you many times she doesn't like me."  
  
"That's not true." He insisted, "She loves you. This is just a very difficult time for her. She'll come around eventually."  
  
There was a nagging feeling of doubt lingering in the back of your throat and you coughed it away, causing your father to turn sharply towards you.  
  
"Is it getting worse?" He asked.  
  
"It's nothing." You replied, clearing your throat once more, "Just felt something tickle the back of my throat. I'm fine now."  
  
He searched your eyes for a very long time, gloved hands reaching out and cupping your face as he continued his search of your eyes that mirrored his own. What exactly he was looking for you didn't know, but when you looked in his all you felt was immense sadness. He was going now to the train station that would inevitably carry him away, presumably forever from what he had told you in confidence. This Major seemed to be of the selfish lot, nit picky if things refused to go his way. From what your father had hinted many times, you suspected he might never come back.  
  
"I love you." You blurted out, tears fogging up your eyes and your face contorting with all the weight of the sadness you dredged up from within your father's eyes. Immediately he pulled you close, lifting you high because he was just so tall and needed to lift you up if he wanted to kiss your forehead. That was another thing you loved about him. He was tall enough to protect you from just about anything, and since you were so small for your age he could lift you like a doll and make you feel as though no one else could love you as much as he.  
  
"I love you too." He murmured into your hair, and after one quick final kiss placed you down. You had watched him walk the lonely pathway towards the looming train station, the whistle sounding low and mournful.  
  
How you would give anything for him to hold you now, your joints had ceased their little game of tag and were now aching all at once from the ankles up. Your heart had started beating fast again, sending a warm trickle of blood down your nose and on to the sheets. Your mother buried her face in her hands, unable to hold back her incoherent sobs.  
  
"Avondale... Avondale..." She cried, repeating your father's name over and over like a mantra. As though it had some sort of power to cure you. It had been almost a week since he'd gone, if you weren't beyond the point of help then you most certainly were now.  
  
You whispered your request to see your father again, mother's hand closing over yours as she stroked your feverish forehead. Tears dropped on your cheeks and you felt sorry you weren't able to be her pillar of strength now when she really needed you, but you still wished that she would just go away.  
  
You wanted your father. No one else would do.


	2. Death Comes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You wanted to apologize before you died. Hell comes in the form of your troupe leader, brother, and father.

"Mother..."

You had never seen someone jump out of their skin quite like your mother did when you finally gained the strength to speak. She was dazed for a split second, looking around in bewilderment for the source of the voice which had called out to her. She said your brother’s name once before her eyes settled on you. It was then her face contorted with a great sadness.

" _Schatzi_..." She whimpered, as though you were torturing her with knives. She grasped your hands tightly and brought them to her chapped lips.

"May I have something to drink please?" You whispered, "I'm very thirsty."

"Something to drink…" She repeated rather stupidly.

"Yes, something hot. I don't care what it is."

Your words must have confused her a great deal for she sat there on your bed staring as though you had asked her to turn cartwheels in her negligee through the snow filled streets. Her mouth was slightly open, and you waited patiently for a response. Eventually when you cleared your throat and repeated the question she snapped back into reality, rising up to duck out of the room and apologizing profusely that she had made her precious _mausi_ repeat herself. The minute she left you gave a strong kick, freeing yourself from the prison of sheets and nearly steaming in the cool air of the room. A long sigh of relief escaped your lips. The thin material of your nightgown was sufficient protection from the winter chill, and it breathed so nicely around the ankles, almost as if you were icing the pain away. It was also a great relief to be away from mother. She was exhausting, her fretting and constant sobs of deep set anguish were admittedly the prime cause of your heart palpitations. She made one nervous, especially now that she seemed to be losing all sense of what was happening in the moment. It was better to be alone if you couldn't have your father. At least alone you could sink into sleep, your eyes shutting slowly and your mind quieting down for you to rest.

Faintly you were aware of her heels pattering around in the kitchen, mumbling things to herself as she fretted and clanged the kettle and cups in a frantic rush to make something for you. At one point you swore you heard her grinding coffee. You wished vaguely that she would do something else while you rested, maybe if she picked up a book or put on music. Something to distract her from your noises and your suffering. A deep sigh issued from the depths of your chest. You were resigned to the fact that without your father you were going to die. That was all there was to it. God must have been angry at you for laughing at BDM so loudly, and He must have conspired with Frau Bachmeier to issue you a death sentence. That didn’t disturb you all that much to be honest. In fact you looked forward to seeing your brother again in the next life. What awaited you after your sickness took hold was nothing compared to the guilt you felt at being unable to apologize for your shocking behavior in the meeting.

“Sorry…” you croaked, “Sorry… Sorry…”

In your feverish sleep you could still see and hear everything of that dreadful night. Gertrude screaming as her hands were coated in your blood. Good looking Klaus in his uniform trembling and backing away as you fell to the floor, your laughter echoing around the dead silent room and mingling with the music of the film playing.

_Stop that damn laughing then!_

“I- I didn’t mean to… It’s just that I can’t stop you see-”

You tried to explain everything to her, voice raising to a shrill chortle as your mind raced with thoughts all tangled together in knots so that one easily flowed into the other as you shrieked with laughter.

_Stop that laughing you wretched girl! Do you think it’s funny that our men, our husbands and brothers and sons are all sacrificing their lives fighting for the nobility and honor of our great nation? Do you find it amusing that we’ve been living among filth for so long that it might take YEARS to undo the damage?_

“I’m sorry… Haha…” Oh God… It was starting again… That awful laughter that brought on the pain which you couldn’t understand. How could pain make you feel as though someone had told a jolly good joke? God please make it stop…

“I… Hahaha! Oh my… I didn’t mean… Pah! HAHAHAHA!” you cackled, unable to stop the laughter that bubbled up in your throat because of Jonas’ comments about old what was his name; the general who walked like a duck because he weighed close to three hundred pounds and looked a sight in his new uniform. He inched slowly along in his new boots brother said, his belt wrapped tightly around his waist so that he seemed separated into segments, just like a worm in fieldgrau, like a-

“-like a fat green caterpillar.” Jonas had said, “Just like a fat green caterpillar with his tunic that doesn’t match his trousers and he inches along so slowly looking for other soldiers to eat I always have to run out of the way just to avoid him touching my asshole-”

“STOP THAT LAUGHING RIGHT NOW!”

You were in tears. You were laughing so hard you were nearly sobbing with the effort of trying to collect yourself and breathe, because goddamn Jonas wouldn’t stop talking about the Caterpillar who ate soldiers from the ass inwards while Frau Bachmeier seized you by the shoulders and began shaking you violently to make you stop. Nothing could stop the laughter that bubbled feverishly up from your throat.

“I… I can’t! Bwahahaha!” you wheezed.

“That’s it!” she bellowed, still shaking you as though it was going to make you stop, “I’m going to report this! You’re going to be in deep shit by the time we’re through with you, young lady! Just see what happens when we tell your father that you- Jesus Christ!”

Liquid bubbled up from the inside of your nostrils and dribbled down your mouth and chin like it did whenever you had a cold. Except it wasn’t mucus that had been loosened by the shaking. It was your own dark red blood flowing like a fountain down over your chin and onto your clothes where it stained everything red as you continued to howl with laughter. The liquid occasionally poured into your mouth and caused you to choke. Your chest heaved and your voice alternated between that incessant coughing, laughter, and occasional wheezes to get breath while the tall bony woman of the Bund Deutscher Madel continued to shake you and call your name in a voice that seemed to get farther and farther away.

“You don’t… understand!” you wheezed, “I… It’s not… Not the film… Hahaha! Oh God please make it… Ahahaha! Make it stop!”

_-need to wake up now!_

“I’m not asleep Frau Bachmeier!” you whined, the laughter at last subsiding into sobbing, “I swear I’m not sleeping or laughing- oh God. It hurts!”

_Schatzi, wake up please! Open your eyes. You’re dreaming._

“I’m not dreaming!” you cried out. The pain in your joints returned and flared up as though hot coals were buried underneath the flesh. Your skin burned hot, it was unbearable to handle this pain. You couldn’t understand how something as simple as a sore throat could turn you into a delirious, shrieking mess

“I’m not dreaming I promise- Father!”

Through blurred vision you could see the faint glinting of glasses in the candlelight, tresses of blond alternating between covering the lenses and revealing them. Only one person had hair that long… But how could he be here when he was far away in Poland?

“Avondale!” your mother screamed. As your vision cleared you could see her clinging to him, sobbing onto his shoulder and kissing the rough fabric of his suit in pure worship.

“Father…” you managed weakly, still not convinced that you were altogether sane even though the man with glinting glasses and long hair did turn out to be your father. Doctor Avondale Napyeer had your shoulders firmly in his grasp. His face was inches away from yours, and you couldn’t tell if he was a living creature that drew breath or if he was a hallucination that breathed courtesy of the air from the open window.

“I’m here now.” Spoke the apparition, your father, in his deep soothing voice. Your mother still clung desperately to him and sobbed his name aloud, but he remained focused on you.

“I’m going to die.” You said after a while of collecting your thoughts and voice, “Thank you for coming to see me one last time… Have you died too? Has God sent you?”

“No…” he told you firmly, “I am alive. More these past few weeks than in a lifetime. And I am going to make sure you will live as well. Do you trust me?”

Of course you did, and you showed him by smiling through the blood that dripped down your nose onto your chin and bedsheets. Immediately you felt something sharp pierce your arm, and a resulting calm that made you feel tired and giddy. You could see through half lidded eyes that your father was swaddling you in your quilt, while your mother asked a thousand questions all at once in her manic voice. With your ear on his chest, you could hear your father’s halfhearted replies to mother’s queries.

“How will you get her there? Can I go with you?! Don’t leave me alone!” your mother cried without drawing breath once.

“I cannot take you with me.” Said your father. His voice was even and calm, trying with every fiber of his being to soothe her and prevent her from having a complete meltdown.

“It is a good thing I came for her when I did.” He told her, and you could feel him gather up a suitcase in his free hand. He gripped even more tightly around your abdomen and made you wince, “I have to go now, please let go of me.”

The last thing you saw was your mother rushing out into the cold, the door of your house left ajar and shining brilliant yellow light out into the dark cold winter that raged on outside. After you heard her scream for the last time, your eyes closed and everything became a world of darkness and noise. What a blessed relief it was to be in your father’s arms out in the snow. You weren’t hot anymore, and instead you allowed yourself to become lost in the loud storm that drowned out all thought.

“I must have died, and this must be heaven.” You said softly, more to yourself than to your father who was shouting above the din of the storm. You felt him jostle you in his arms, but your head lolled from side to side without a care as he again pierced your arm with a needle which was according to him meant to put you to sleep. He told you vaguely to take even breaths, supposedly it would help to forget the horrid burning of whatever it was he injected into your skin, and supposedly the air would help you fall asleep faster. Evidently your father was right, your heart rate was already beginning to steady and there was the warm feeling of your blanket which eventually caused you to enter a dreamless state. You could do nothing except hear Doctor, your father, telling someone over the roar in your ears an estimated time of the procedure’s end.

_“I’ve given her a strong sedative to keep her quiet on the way. She won’t remember any of this… Hopefully she will stay fresh in time for it to work. Two hours max. That is what we will have when we land.” said your father._

_“Will she have any recollection of what happened before?” asked a voice._

_“Of course not. The anesthesia will help her to forget. I will have to explain to her of course when she wakes up. She will likely become confused, will have to be watched closely to make sure she doesn’t lose control.” replied your father._

_“If indeed she does wake up again.” contradicted the voice._

_“Don’t question the work I do…”_

_“Herr Doktor, we do not know what sort of effect it will have. Also considering the fact that she’s much too young… Not even a woman. How can she handle it if her male counterparts, war criminals and filth, could not?”_

_“She is strong. She survived this long, and she will continue to live again. Her life will not be hindered, it will be improved.”_

The voices began to meld together into indiscernible drivel, arguing back and forth as though trying to prove a point in this world of darkness that your father had placed you in. In this strange unknown world there was no concept of the outside, save for the peaceful muttering which continued steadily on like a drone. Eventually some sort of primal instinct convinced your rather groggy brain to open the eyes and look into the face of the man who had granted your last wish. Your father’s eyes were focused on pulling a needle with thread in and out of the side of your head in such a fluid and mechanical motion that for a minute he ceased to be human in your eyes. He was not aware of the momentous event that had just taken place. He would probably never understand your fear at thinking the reason he was unaware of your gaze was because you were a spirit, seeing everything for the last time before your soul either ascended into heaven or descended into hell. Avondale Napyeer remained ignorant of your wakefulness until perhaps the gaze finally made him aware, and then he breathed the most humane words anyone could have said in that moment.

“You did a good job _mausi_. It’s all over now.”

Ten words, and the fear was miraculously gone forever.


End file.
